hewers of wood and drawers of water

A biblical term, first mentioned in Joshua 9:21 (but compare Deuteronomy 29:10).

hewers of wood and drawers of water pl (plural only)

1. Those who drudge, or are made to work hard; those who do menial or servile work at the behest of others; physical labourers.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Joshua 9:21, column 1:

     And the Princes ſaid vnto them, Let them liue, (but let them bee hewers of wood, and drawers of water, vnto all the Congregation,) as the Princes had promiſed them.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Joshua 9:23, column 1:

     Now therefore ye are curſed, and there ſhall none of you bee freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood, and drawers of water, for the houſe of my God.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Joshua 9:27, column 1:

     And Ioſhua made them that day, hewers of wood, and drawers of water for the Congregation, and for the Altar of the Lord, euen vnto this day, in the place which he ſhould chooſe.

   • 1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals, London: Longmans, Green and Co., page 13:

     But what of that vast number of the human kind who were always in the background? What of the hewers of wood and drawers of water, the swineherds, the shepherds, the carpenters, the hedgers and cobblers?

   • 1991, Martin Ohaeri Ijere, Women in Nigerian Economy, page 41:

     All these groups are among the hewers of wood and drawers of water whom Marx assured that they would have nothing but their chains to lose if they rose against their oppressors.